Cutoff Criteria for Dermatology Applicants

Many applicants to dermatology and other competitive residencies express frustration that cutoff scores for residency programs are difficult to pinpoint. Why is that? One reason is that while Step 1 and 2 scores and AOA membership are currently very important benchmarks for interview selection from a pool of highly qualified applicants, numbers alone do not convey a complete picture of each applicant’s academic achievements. Programs probably don’t want to be prevented from interviewing and ranking applicants who are outstanding in some other way and have excellent potential to contribute to the residency program, even if their Step scores are lower than other applicants or if they were not selected for AOA. That is why it is rare to find programs that are willing to give applicants an absolute cutoff criteria.